by Richard Butrick (October 2015)
“In every country it always is and must be the interest of the great body of the people to buy whatever they want of those who sell it cheapest.” Adam Smith
It’s a no-brainer.
Free trade is the biggest no-brainer for securing America’s long-term prosperity. It opens markets, creates jobs, raises wages, levels the legal playing field, increases the availability of goods for consumers, and slashes prices for every nation that tries it.
And here is an article from Forbes making the same point. Unlike the above quote from Investor’s Business Daily, the article admits that free trade does result in job losses. more>>>
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One Response
Interesting piece, with an argument that seems “obvious” only when it is formulated by the author.
I’d add that even if comparative advantage is granted as the basis for a political decision, its treatment of a state as a kind of point mass, or billiard ball, obscures the issue of who exactly benefits in each state. Now given that international relations theory and research have been focusing for over thirty years on models of interaction that acknowledge that state actors are not “unitary,” it is curious that this insight hasn’t trickled down to a more nuanced understanding of comparative advantage.